Our Precious Waters - Finnish-Norwegian water catchment management to conserve joint waters and biodiversity

In places where water crosses borders, we face the same dangers to our environment. In this project, we're working together to solve these shared problems by creating tools for managing water together. To succeed, we need to gather information and expertise from both Finland and Norway about the areas where water flows between our countries. This will help us understand the changes happening there, share data effectively, and use new tools to study the genes of fish that need protection.

We'll study the current condition of the environment in the Pasvik area using methods that have been used in earlier monitoring surveys. This is important so that we can compare our findings now and in the future. Our studies on the genetics of brown trout and the information we gather about their populations in the Pasvik area are built upon a plan developed in a project called Kolarctic in 2021. Additionally, we'll continue building a database for salmon in the Neiden River, which follows on from the database we made for the Tana River in a previous Interreg North project.

Wild brown trout populations with strong genetic diversity are becoming rare because loss of habitats and stocking of fish for a long time. Our project focuses on the area where Lake Inari meets the Pasvik River. We want to use this area as an example for both Norway and Finland to work together and learn from. By understanding what make brown trout grow big and migrate, and by keeping their genetic diversity high, we can help guide stocking programs and fisheries management plans for local fisheries.

The number of Atlantic salmon in the Neiden River has gone low recently. Finland and Norway need to make a new bilateral fishing agreement and plan to protect them. To accomplish this, we will establish a database for Neiden salmon by gathering extensive information from both countries.

Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luonnonvarakeskus/ Luke) has conducted long-term monitoring of salmonid fish populations in Neidenelva, Pasvikelva and Tana for decades, being the main provider of data and scientific advice for management (bilaterally Finland-Norway, regionally in Lapland, and locally) of these cross-border catchments. Luke will be the responsible partner in Finland in work packages 2 and 3 which focus on database compilation, new data collection and various analyses (genetic, statistical etc.) on fish populations in the cross-border river systems. In WP2 we aim to build genetic library to reveal human-induced changes in the unique natural brown trout populations in the Pasvik-Inari watershed for cross-border management and conservation (WP2) together with NIBIO. In WP3 we are aim sharing new information on the status of the Neiden River salmon stocks as a basis of the renewal of the bilateral agreement on salmon conservation and management together with NINA.